[PATCH] apparmor: fix NULL ctx->peer derefs in unix socket ctx updates

[Aurelien Jarno]

Hi Maxime,

On 2026-08-24 17:58, Maxime Bélair wrote:
> aa_unix_file_perm lazily refreshes the AppArmor context cached on a unix
> socket. Two of the helpers it uses assume ctx->peer has already been set:
> 
> 	update_peer_ctx ->  l = aa_label_merge(old, label, GFP_ATOMIC);
> 	update_sk_ctx   ->  } else if (aa_label_is_subset(plabel, old)) {
> 
> where @old is ctx->peer. Neither aa_label_merge nor aa_label_is_subset
> allows NULL. So both fault on the aa_label->size load.
> 
>   BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000004c
>   RIP: 0010:__aa_label_next_not_in_set+0xb/0xd0
>   Call Trace:
>    aa_label_is_subset+0x3f/0x70
>    aa_unix_file_perm+0x5e8/0x9d0
>    aa_file_perm+0x45a/0x550
>    apparmor_file_permission+0x44/0xb0
>    security_file_permission+0x40/0x100
>    rw_verify_area+0x56/0x180
>    vfs_write+0x7c/0x480
>    ksys_write+0xbf/0xf0
> 
> ctx->peer is only recorded for stream connections and socket pairs.
> unix_dgram_connect sets unix_peer(sk) without going through that path,
> so a connected AF_UNIX datagram socket has unix_peer(sk) set while
> ctx->peer is still NULL, and the first write that needs revalidation
> reaches the helpers above.
> 
> Both derefs date back to the Fixes: commit, but the update_sk_ctx() one
> was dormant until commit 4483efe4f215 ("apparmor: fix shadowing of plabel
> that prevents cache from being updated") stopped @plabel being shadowed,
> which is why bisecting the oops lands there.
> 
> A NULL @old just means no peer label has been recorded yet, so install
> the label directly instead of merging or comparing against it.
> 
> Fixes: 88fec3526e84 ("apparmor: make sure unix socket labeling is correctly updated.")
> Reported-by: Aurelien Jarno <aurelien at aurel32.net>
> Closes: https://bugs.debian.org/1145111
> Cc: stable at vger.kernel.org
> Signed-off-by: Maxime Bélair <maxime.belair at canonical.com>
> ---
>  security/apparmor/af_unix.c | 20 ++++++++++++--------
>  1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

Thanks a lot for the quick patch. I confirm it fixes the issue I 
reported.

Tested-by: Aurelien Jarno <aurelien at aurel32.net>

Regards
Aurelien

-- 
Aurelien Jarno                          GPG: 4096R/1DDD8C9B
aurelien at aurel32.net                     http://aurel32.net